Why is your child crying ?

We got a book into the shop today called reasons why my kid is crying and its a humorous book based on the popular tumblr of the same name. This guy compiled a series of photos of his three year old crying for the most ridiculous reasons and then many other parents of small children found this so utterly relatable that it went viral and then other people sent in photos of their kids for the blog too. Now I don't have any children, not even a little one stashed away somewhere. If you don't believe me you can search my apartment, it wont take long because it's not very big. But I have enough experience with the tiny folk for this to sufficiently amuse me. Here's a link to the tumblr if you would care to check it out http://www.reasonsmysoniscrying.com/ and if you don't laugh then perhaps it's because you're a humorless monster. I jest.

Anyway the whole thing got me thinking about me as a child and yes that's me in the photo. I know I look very cute but It's clear I have been bawling my eyes out. I was one of those kids. If that tumblr had been around when I was small Im sure my mother would have had plenty to offer. Luckily for me the internet wasn't invented or at least not available to your average householder so I don't have the whole internet laughing at my childhood transgressions. The photo was taken at christmas and you can see the lovely job I did on my fringe (that's why you don't leave scissors within the reach of kids, well that and the obviously much more dangerous things kids can get up to with scissors). Now I am not sure why I am crying here but I do know there's another photo of me in that incredibly groovy jumper and it's a group photo of me, my dad, my brother and my slightly older sister. In the photo my dad has a lot more hair and it makes him look a bit like a mad scientist and he's holding me on his lap but has his hand on my neck and I'm crying a lot so it looks like he is strangling me. I think he was just trying to keep me in the photo and I was crying because I didn't want my photo taken but that was the kind of kid I was. I remember going through a phase where I would cry when someone produced a camera. The really funny thing is I went this phase when I was four or five as opposed to my fat years as I now refer to my twenties. In fact there are still photos around the house somewhere in which I have been bribed to pose. I remember one where I am standing on the front steps of the house with a big red teary face but smiling and clutching a one pound note ( because that was the currency at the time and I was clearly a foolish cheaply bribed child)

I am only grateful that my mother would not have been tech savvy enough given the opportunity ( internet and a family computer ) to write a blog about reasons why her child is crying but I have a feeling it would have been a long and ridiculous list. I was famous in our family for being overly sensitive to the extent that years later when teased about the fact that I used to cry so easily that I could be relied on to cry about teasing. Yes I was a delicate flower indeed. I also went through another phase where I found hair washing to be very traumatic ( my lucky mother) and would wail like a banshee whenever I was subjected to it. I think my own nieces were like this about hair brushing up until recently enough which reassures me that I wasn't the only child like this.

Nowadays I am willing pose for photos and wash my own hair all by myself without a single tear unless I get an eye full of shampoo but I still have the same ugly crying face but I'm smart enough to not take photos of that